


Careless With A Delicate Man

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Break Up, F/M, Past Relationship(s), X-Files OctoberFicFest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-28 22:48:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8465899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: Phoebe, Diana, Scully.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: N/A  
> A/N: Title is from "Criminal" by Fiona Apple.  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

Phoebe was darkness, foggy nights in the graveyard, late nights in the library, dark red lipstick that stained his face like blood. Phoebe tied him up. Phoebe broke him down. And yet, they had eaten fish and chips with their fingers. They had kissed until he thought they might be standing at a confluence of ley lines, the energy of the entire world coursing through them. They had lain on the ground in the green fields around Stonehenge, gazing up at the ancient rocks and the blue sky. 

She had smiled when she’d left him. He remembered her long-lashed dark eyes, heavy with mascara, and the gleam of her teeth against the maroon of her lipstick. She’d been wearing a black turtleneck sweater that emphasized her breasts and a tight black skirt. 

“Darling, it’s just no good,” she’d said, touching his chest. He’d looked down at her fingers, the nail painted to match her lips. Ice spread from her fingertips through his chest.

It took him years to thaw.

\+ + + +

Diana was shadows: conspiracy and grim quests. The light was anathema to them, in those days. Once, Mulder had stood in the spotlight, defiant, with Phoebe waiting just outside, but he and Diana walked together through the dim, shining their flashlights on the gruesome secrets and hidden truths the world tried to conceal. It had been brighter, though. It took the light to make the shadows. Diana hadn’t tried to dismember him the way that Phoebe had. Diana had never made him beg. 

Diana hadn’t smiled when she’d left him. Her mouth had been set in a serious line. That made it worse, in a way. If she didn’t enjoy leaving him, she shouldn’t have left. But she went all the same, and left him alone in the swampy heat of DC. He moved, filled his bedroom with boxes, and exiled himself to the couch. He had thought they would be enough, together. There must have been some clue he had missed. He had thought he was better than that. He didn’t ask her to stay. He knew better than to start begging when something was already over. He had learned that lesson young. 

He stayed in the shadows. Every night he ran alone, away from the empty husk of his dreams, dodging the illuminated pools of the streetlights. 

\+ + + +

Scully was the sunrise. She came into his life and light spilled slowly back over him, gently, half-obscured by the clouds of his memory. Now and again he winced in the face of her brightness, but she never turned away from him. She was merciless. He had never been more grateful for the inevitability of dawn.

He had forgotten how it felt, to be in the liveable zone. He could feel himself growing stronger, taller, healthier in her presence. She shone on him and sometimes her radiance burned, but he was better for it. They still descended into the shadows in search of the truth, but they emerged together, hand over hand back up into the clear, clean air and the glow of daylight.


End file.
